Meta Launches CSR Initiative to Address India’s Challenges

Meta India announced a partnership with The/Nudge Institute to launch Pragati: AI for Impact. This CSR initiative aims to help nonprofits use AI to address challenges in healthcare, agriculture, education, and inclusion. 

“This program reflects Meta’s commitment to leveraging AI to drive meaningful social impact, particularly in underserved communities across India,” Sandhya Devanathan, VP of India at Meta, said. 

The program offers grants of ₹40 lakh to ₹1.5 crore for 10-12 startups each to develop and implement AI solutions. It also aims to help these nonprofits receive guidance from experts through workshops. 

Proposals can be submitted before January 26 using the following link. The initiative is set to incubate 10-12 startups. 

To be eligible, interested organisations should have been operational for one to 10 years or be part of The/Nudge Institute. They should also have at least one full-time founder and not have used developed solutions for commercial purposes. In short, the AI solutions must be open-source projects. 

Devanathan added that the program includes a special focus on women-led social enterprises. 

Founded in 2015, The/Nudge Institute is a social enterprise incubator that funds nonprofit startups. Its first incubator cohort, which included 10 startups, launched in 2017. In 2022, the organisation marked the incubation of over a hundred nonprofit startups. 

Besides Meta, even Google announced plans to support nonprofits a few days ago. Through its philanthropic arm Google.org, the tech giant has announced its next generative AI accelerator program. 

The six-month-long accelerator will support nonprofit organisations in using generative AI to build solutions. The initiative will provide Google Cloud credits and pro bono support from Google employees, along with a portion of $30 million in funding.

This is Google’s second such initiative. The first one, held in 2024, brought together 21 nonprofits. 

Last year, Google.org awarded a $1 million grant to Karya, an Indian nonprofit that provides low-income communities worldwide with AI-driven learning and earning opportunities. Karya plans to utilise the grant to develop a skilling curriculum based on research and practical experience, which will be translated into 10 major Indic languages.